Pilar Cancela Rodríguez

Pilar Cancela Rodríguez (August 21, 1967, Stuttgart, Germany) is a Spanish politician who has been serving as Secretary of State for International Cooperation in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2021.

Since 2017, Cancela Rodríguez has been Secretary of the Migration Policies and PSOE del Exterior area in the Federal Executive Committee of the PSOE. She has been a deputy for the Partido de los Socialistas de Galicia-PSOE (PSdeG-PSOE) in Congress during the XI, XII, XIII and XIV legislatures. From September 2016 to July 2021 she chaired the Equality Commission of the Congress of Deputies.

Career
Cancela Rodríguez was secretary of Organization of the PSdeG.

Member of Parliament
In December 2015, Cancela Rodríguez was elected deputy for La Coruña in Congress, being reelected in 2016. In September of that same year she was elected President of the Equality Commission of the Congress.

In June 2017, Cancela Rodríguez was elected secretary of the area of Migration Policies and PSOE del Exterior in the executive of Pedro Sánchez.

In her work in Congress, Cancela Rodríguez chaired the Subcommittee created within the Equality Commission for the elaboration of the State Pact on Gender Violence, approved on September 28, 2017, in the Plenary. In July 2021, she left the presidency of the Equality Commission, being replaced on September 30, 2021, by Carmen Calvo.

Career in government
On July 21, 2021, Cancela Rodríguez was appointed Secretary of State for International Cooperation.

In 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Cancela Rodríguez to co-chair his Advisory Group on Local and Regional Governments, alongside Fatimatou Abdel Malick.

Other activities

 * Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Member of the Board of Trustees